To the Stone-Cutters

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeatedChallengers of oblivionEat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records falldown,The square-limbed Roman lettersScale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as wellBuilds his monument mockingly;For manwill be blotted out, the blithe earth die, thebrave sunDie blind and blacken to the heart:Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and painedthoughts foundThe honey of peace in old poems.